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Ambient Landscape

~ Digressions & musings on Ambient, Electronica, Mixing & the Ether

Ambient Landscape

Monthly Archives: February 2020

Boreal Massif – We All Have An Impact

28 Friday Feb 2020

Posted by gabulmer in Uncategorized

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Following the success of the Pessimist & Karim Maas LP, the no-fuss Pessimist Productions imprint reveals its third release. Boreal Massif is the collaborative effort of Pessimist and Loop Faction, and here they present their debut full-length LP, We All Have An Impact.

Focusing on the destruction of the natural world and our ecosystems, We All Have An Impact… shows there can be more to electronic music than a shallow and empty narrative. Built from field recordings and a deep reservoir of trip-hop / drum & bass influences (think B12’s Electro-Soma, vintage Mo Wax records…), Boreal Massif’s raw, unpolished anarcho-electronics offer a blueprint for the next generation of new age music.

Released October 11, 2019
All tracks Written & Produced by Kristian Jabs & Reuben Kramer
Distributed by Low Company
Mastered by Grinzer @ Manmade Mastering




Circus in Town . . !

27 Thursday Feb 2020

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Lots of fun today: in the Twitter-verse, in the blog-o-sphere & in general.

A Clown Car pulled into town. All of the clowns had their tits in a wringer; i.e. they were pissed off (which I told ’em was better’n bein’ pissed on)! They visited for a little while; shouting, squealing, ranting, raving, pissing their britches & making a general fuss & commotion ’bout a simple question I had posed.

But none of ’em knew the answer.
So they elevated their argumentation to the old stand-by: ad hominem attacks.

Their faces got red
They misspelled words
Their grammar (not their Grandma!) sucked
They thrashed & wailed.
They circle-jerked one another & nodded in unison like so many bobble-head dolls.
And they elevated my stats & metrics off the freakin’ chart!!
(through the roof, baby!)

And thus . . . I’m grateful.

Thanks, boys . . . let’s do it again real soon!

City of Bridges, by Kate Carr

27 Thursday Feb 2020

Posted by gabulmer in Ambient, Experimental

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Kate Carr has been investigating the intersections between sound, place, and emotionality both as an artist and a curator since 2010. During this time she has ventured from tiny fishing villages in northern Iceland, explored the flooded banks of the Seine in a nuclear power plant town, recorded wildlife in South Africa, and in the wetlands of southern Mexico. She also runs the label Flaming Pines.

Artist notes:

This piece is the result of nearly a month spent in the Canadian city of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan during Autumn. I was in Saskatoon to develop a new work and much of my time was spent wandering around this city, which I discovered was also referred to as the ‘city of bridges’ recording various bridges, as well as streetscapes, the South Saskatchewan River, and people vibrating various structures in Saskatoon, raised pavements, the bridges themselves, and this very cool and narrow pedestrian and train bridge. I have been interested for quite a while now in the ways people contribute sonically to the making of particular spaces, and so this was my focus here. In this recording you will also hear various recordings from cafes I visited in Saskatoon, and the soundtracks I encountered there, I should hat tip The Underground Cafe where I went almost every day. There is also the bass throb from one guy’s car who stopped to pump out some thrash metal-ish sounding music, but from the outside all I could hear was this muffled thump, which I found quite hilarious and excellent and also there is a sample from the Saskatoon-based band Waitress, who are a very excellent band I met while there and who allowed me to use a snippet of one of their tracks for this piece. Apart from some very minor edits this piece was performed as it is live in my studio in Brixton, London using field recordings from Saskatoon alongside vibrating wires, strings, squeaking magnetic tape, a zither, shakers, a gong and an owl horn. It is based loosely on the performance I gave in Saskatoon for the Sounds Like Festival in October, 2018.

This piece could only come about with the help of a number of people and organisations, so a very big thanks to: Paved Arts, Travis Cole, David Riviere, Lenore Maier, for bringing me to Saskatoon, my cool studio, and my temporary bike courtesy of Lenore, and Sounds Like Festival Saskatoon, Chad Munson, Lindsey Roo and Tod Emel for hosting me so well, showing me round, having me play, and for all the lovely chats, beers, late nights. Finally a big thanks to Janice Weber and Kalon Beaudry from the band Waitress who I was lucky enough to see play, and who let me use a sample from their track Cry Baby from their album Delay Our Time. You can find them on bandcamp here: www.waitress1.bandcamp.com

My thoughts on listening are very strongly influenced by my practice as a field recordist, and the intersection this work has had with my experience of space and place. I am interested in how we discover or come to know, construct or even invent a place, a home, a new space through listening, and the ways in which listening as a practice can contribute to an appreciation and constructive engagement with ideas of difference in all its many guises. I guess I am in this way interested in the ways we come to know and construct our ideas of ourselves and others via listening, and the ways in which we build our ideas of space, the spaces in which we live, meet and encounter each other in listening. I think I should here also acknowledge actually the work of my PhD supervisor Salomé Voegelin who has written a lot about listening, and in her work I think there are many very interesting ideas about what listening is or can be, but one of the best, at least for me and what I am interested in, is the way in which listening can give us access to a world which is maybe not now, or not yet, but which could be, so in this sense listening as a way of expanding our ideas of the possible. I have always been extremely interested in the ways we think about possibilities, and I like to think about the ways sound and the practice of listening can augment our ideas of what the world is, and how it could change. I think in my own work, not just through these ideas about listening, but in composing I like to make works which at least for me make me think about inhabiting a world which is somehow a little bit different, richer, somehow more intense and strange and beautiful, and which for me I build for myself through these practices of composing and listening. 

credits

Released April 17, 2019

Leaves Stories (ice), by Emmanuel Toledo & Lauri Hallikainen

20 Thursday Feb 2020

Posted by gabulmer in Uncategorized

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Leaves Stories (ice) is the third opus of the series “Leaves Stories”. 

Frozen lake, booming ice is the exquisite playground provided by Lauri, over which Emmanuel digressed and come back with mechanical sounds, old organs, ARP2600 synthesizers and diffusion effects. 

This work is based around those ‘false awakening’ experienced after exhausting walks in such landscapes.

Released March 15, 2015


A Particular Timeline, by Neuro… No Neuro

16 Sunday Feb 2020

Posted by gabulmer in Ambient, Experimental, Mixing, Tech/Glitch

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Following Neuro… No Neuro’s release “Scans”, a new assortment of tracks has emerged. While Scans explored much of the process of the last brain surgery, “A Particular Timeline” moves solidly into the day-to-day. From incoherent thought, to pondering one’s own timeline, and moments of sheer longing, A Particular Timeline expresses what words cannot.

While Scans was representative of one very brief set of events, A Particular Timeline bridges the gap between several permanently residual issues both prior to and following the story behind Scans. A long-term set of side-effects.

Using different sound sources, A Particular Timeline provides a flowing, ever-spreading, gentle touch, opposite of Scans’ percussive taps and whirs. Moments meant to lose oneself in.

Releases March 11, 2020

The Video Game – A Particular Timeline
As a bonus, a short video game (also titled “A Particular Timeline”) has been created. If you can solve it, an additional set of three tracks can be obtained.

The game can be found at:
nnnontendo.itch.io/a-particular-timeline

Lowlands, by Taylor Deupree & Marcus Fischer

15 Saturday Feb 2020

Posted by gabulmer in Uncategorized

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Lowlands began when Ester Vonplon traveled to Spitsbergen in the Arctic Ocean in summer 2016. She sailed the ice-clogged seas of the Arctic Ocean on a three-masted sailing vessel, to capture the impressions of the calving glaciers and melting ice. 
This journey in the Arctic Ocean was the perfect beginning for Taylor Deupree & Marcus Fischer to compose and record Lowlands. 

Recorded between 2014 and 2017 in Reykjavik, Captiva, Portland, and Pound Ridge. 

All instruments by Marcus Fischer and Taylor Deupree. 

Nagra processing by Marcus Fischer. 

Mixing and mastering by Taylor Deupree. 

Cover Photograph by By Ester Vonplon. 

This tape is a re-issue of the Lowlands project previously release on vinyl on IIKKI in July 2017. 

www.iikki-books.com

Released December 1, 2017


Lent, by Oberlin

12 Wednesday Feb 2020

Posted by gabulmer in Ambient, Experimental, Mixing, Uncategorized

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“Lent“ is a collection of three acoustic meditations made with electric guitar, a Eurorack Modular System and a collection of field recordings. 

These instrumental soundscapes were inspired by a stay on the North Sea coast in the Netherlands and strives to transmit the atmosphere of the wind, the sea, the sand and the quietness of this landscape in the time before Easter, 2018. 

In some ways it can be regarded as a follow-up to Oberlin’s “In Ochre” which was inspired by alternative landscapes and had slightly different musical directions.

Released January 4, 2019 

Recorded during Easter, 2018 at Oberlin’s home studio, Koblenz, Germany. Electric guitar, Modular Synth and Field-Recordings by Alexander Holtz. 

Mastering, artwork, design and packaging by Handstitched* 

Alexander would like to give many thanks to Tim Diagram for his fine work on giving the tracks the acoustical and optical form in which they appear here. 




Fractal Guitar (feat. Markus Reuter, David Torn) by Stephan Thelen

10 Monday Feb 2020

Posted by gabulmer in Experimental, Mixing, Post Rock

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Guitarist and composer Stephan Thelen releases his debut album for Moonjune Records worldwide on January 18, 2019. It’s an instrumental, post-progressive album co-produced by Markus Reuter (Stick Men), featuring guest appearances of many leading electric guitarists including David Torn, Markus Reuter, Henry Kaiser, Jon Durant, Bill Walker, Barry Cleveland and Matt Tate, as well as drummers/percussionists Benno Kaiser, Manuel Pasquinelli and Andi Pupato. 
Stephan Thelen is American born Swiss who composes, produces and performs music at the fringes of rock, jazz, experimental and classical music. His current main project as a leader, guitarist and composer is the minimal groove band Sonar, who have quickly gained international reputation for creating a unique blend of music that fuses a rigorous minimal concept with the power of a rock band and the sensitivity of a jazz combo. 
Former projects include playing guitar and electronics with Swiss ensembles Radio Osaka, License To Chill, Broken Symmetry and Root Down, producing albums (for example Andy Brugger’s No No Diet Bang and Peter Schärli Sextet), as well as composing music for many theater and film productions. The celebrated Kronos Quartet recently recorded and frequently performed Stephan’s string quartet Circular Lines, a piece commissioned by the Kronos Arts Association and Carnegie Hall for a visionary project called “Fifty for the Future”. The Mannheimer Schlagwerk, a percussion ensemble from Germany, also recently premiered his composition Parallel Motion. 
Fractal Guitar features the atmospherically dense, polyrhythmic tapestry for which is Sonar is well known, but focuses much more on the sonic and ambient possibilities of the electric guitar. In the liner notes, Stephan Thelen writes : “After a few years of playing without effects apart from reverb in Sonar, I felt the urge to compose and record some pieces in which effects were an integral part of the music. I especially wanted to use an effect I worked with before Sonar, which I call “Fractal Guitar” — a rhythmic delay with a very high feedback level that creates cascading delay patterns in odd time signatures such as 3/8, 5/8 or 7/8. The other desire I had was to work with and to have some serious fun with a few of the many great guitarists I’ve met over the years to create an album that features some of the more forward-looking possibilities of the most mysterious, compelling and eclectic of all instruments, the electric guitar. ” 

########################### 

After a few years of playing without effects apart from reverb in Sonar,
I felt the urge to compose and record some pieces in which effects were an integral part of the music. I especially wanted to use an effect I worked with before Sonar, which I call “Fractal Guitar” — a rhythmic delay with a very high feedback level that creates cascading delay patterns in odd time signatures such as 3/8, 5/8 or 7/8. 

The other desire I had was to work with and to have some serious fun with a few of the many great guitarists I’ve met over the years to create an album that features some of the more forward-looking possibilities of the most mysterious, compelling and eclectic of all instruments, the electric guitar. 

The five tracks on this album grew out of a mind-boggling amount of 
activity and crystallized out of myriad soundfiles, recorded across the 
Western hemisphere during the last 3 years. Thanks to all my great friends who helped me pull it off, especially to Markus Reuter, who shared his exceptional talents and endless creativity with me on every step of the way. Thanks also to Grace, Devin and Anil Prasad for their generous hospitality, to Brandy Gale and Henry Kaiser for inspiration and to Leonardo “Moonjune” Pavkovic for inviting me into the illustrious Moonjune Club. 

– Stephan Thelen, Zürich, August 2018 

Releases January 18th, 2019


f a l l s t r e a k

02 Sunday Feb 2020

Posted by gabulmer in Uncategorized

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f a l l s t r e a k | ambient | 2020

A fallstreak hole, also known as a hole punch cloud, punch hole cloud, skypunch, canal cloud or cloud hole, is a large circular or elliptical gap that can appear in Cirrocumulus or Altocumulus clouds. Such holes are formed when the water temperature in the clouds is below freezing but the water has not frozen yet due to the lack of ice nucleation (see supercooled water).

And now . . . it’s [also] a mix – sparse and slowly evolving with piano infused aural tapestries, atmospheres & drones – meant to patch fallstreak holes on the fly. The listener is cautioned to gird themselves with a comfortable pair of wireless ear-buds, as accompaniment, along the journey (a free-fall??) through the hazy, ambient-strewn upper stratosphere.
83:00

01 Ambient Landscape – Ghost intro
02 PinkCourtesyPhone – Date of Loss
03 Conor C. Ellis – Soft Earth (excerpt)
04 Hilyard – Windows
05 Xo Xinh – Conversation
06 Earlyguard – Disintegrated
07 Brian Eno – Lanzarote
08 Deaf Center – Movements / The Ascent
09 Tonepoet & Cloudfall – Free Falling through Life’s Cavernous Atmosphere
10 Mathieu Lamontagne & Emmanuel Toledo – Sans Titre
11 bvdub – Disappearing in the Sun
12 Jens Pauly – Nacht
13 Robert Rich & Markus Reuter – Flood Expeditions: Streamside, #4 (edit)
14 Simon Scott – Baaval
15 The Circular Ruins & Off the Sky – Through Solid Shadows

Low Distance by Deaf Center

01 Saturday Feb 2020

Posted by gabulmer in Uncategorized

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Low Distance is Deaf Center´s third full-length studio album and perhaps the most focused effort by the Norwegian duo to date. After their last record Owl Splinters (2011) was quite an eclectic endeavor, Erik K Skodvin & Otto A Totland draw their sound back into something more quiet and minimal. 

The record starts with a piece of sweeping analougue electronics. It´s a spacious, yet dynamic opener that leads directly into the static tones and piano motivs of Entity Voice, which balances a new sense of abstractation with the classic Deaf Center sound. It´s warm and close while sounding like it´s set in the outer horizon. Overall Low Distance feels both alien and familiar with its atonal synths, close pianos and drowned out noises. 

After meeting in studio for the first time since 2011, the recordings came out of a 3 day session in 2017. It was then mixed at both EMS Stockholm and at Erik´s home studio over a longer period to create a blend of deeply layered as well as stripped down pieces. Both Erik & Otto have been active individually since their last meeting as Deaf Center: Otto released 2 solo piano albums, while Erik has furthered his descent into musical abstractation both under his own name and as Svarte Greiner. It´s long overdue to hear them connect their personalities into something new. Low Distance is a welcome return replete with beauty, mystery and uncertainty.

Released March 22, 2019

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